


Ever Brave

by the_chaotic_panda



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Blood, Patrick cares about his plants, Post-Apocalypse, Tin Soldier Pete, fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 13:29:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18661372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_chaotic_panda/pseuds/the_chaotic_panda
Summary: In 1991, they arrived. They took the cities first, then the towns, then the villages. They came, they saw, but they didn't quite conquer.It's now 2019, and Patrick's still clinging to life. He's learned their methods, their weaknesses, and although he's alone, he's alive. He thinks he's got survival all figured out - until he gets caught in a bear trap.He doesn't expect to be saved by one of the creatures that's spent twenty years trying to kill him.





	Ever Brave

**Author's Note:**

> Good evening all, welcome to the end of the world. It'll be heaps of fun, I swear! 
> 
> I've been excited for this challenge for like a whole year now so thanks to everyone for taking part and making it happen! Be sure to check out the other stories in this collection, they're all brilliant! 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy! On with the angst!

The smell of sweat and earth is ripe in the air as Patrick's footsteps crush the ground beneath him. They follow, the grating of their armour like torn fingernails and splintered chalkboards. Patrick doesn't stand a chance. 

His lungs wither with each gasp of rotting air he takes - his body will fail long before their batteries. He's a fox flushed from his hiding place, a runt among the litter of super-soldiers. His human body fails around him, his knees grinding and his head capsizing. Perhaps it would be simpler to cut his own throat. 

He's worked so hard. To eat, to drink, to live. The food will run out, the rivers will dry up and his bones will crumble as the dirt does but for now, he's breathing. Death has him by the the throat - his tendons tear like tissue and his skin cracks like fallen leaves - but he'll be damned if he's going to close his eyes. His brain is faster than any supercomputer, he just needs to find his bearings. 

If he runs - if he ploughs everything he has into every step, if he pushes his frame to the limit - he can make it. They're not close. He has time to get home, safe, secure before he jeopardises his position. He's made it back every day for twenty years, and this one is no exception. 

He can feel the lake's presence, he can smell it in the air, the freshness of forest breeze chasing the stench of corpses from Patrick's nostrils. He only hopes they won't sniff him out. The thunder lessens with each step he takes, each tree he dodges, his pack strapped tight to his back and a grenade swinging from his belt. Every day, he prays he won't have to use it. It's an emergency measure, a precaution in case he gets caught. He knows, one day, he'll have to blow himself to pieces - and when that day comes, he'll be thankful. 

The flash of silver from between the trees on his left sends a wire through his heart. He skids to a stop, swinging himself behind the trunk of a white oak and clinging to it. His lungs gulp at the air, his rasping breaths a knife through the eerie silence. 

It's running. Patrick can hear the jolt of its joints, the slash of metal into the earth below. It's not close, not yet. He can still make it. He will make it. 

When he turns and steps away from the tree, his body shatters. 

Before the pain comes, before his brain can recalculate its mortality rate, he looks down at his leg. The irony of running from robots only to be felled by humanity dawns on him briefly as he looks at the rusted teeth of the bear trap. But irony does nothing to prevent the agony. 

His mind writhes like a child having a nightmare, nowhere to turn except the inevitable wave of darkness that threatens the edges of his vision. Perhaps if he stares ahead, it hasn't happened. Perhaps if he watches the sway of budding leaves and feels the chill of the wind across his face, he can hold off the tide of reality. 

He's granted no such privilege. His other leg gives out beneath him and his spine grates down the bark of the tree. In the jaws of the trap, there's a bloodied mess that paints his fragility bright and hot across the forest floor. He won't walk again. These traps weren't built for flesh wounds. He closes his eyes and stands down all trains of logical thought. The world has made him an animal - it's only fitting that he should die like one. 

The life he tried so hard to protect fades before his eyes. His throat forms only hoarse screams, his eyes wet with tortured tears. For a few seconds, he's granted release, his battered soul floating somewhere far off and blissful before he's forced back to his bleeding body. He focuses on the lullaby of air over his top lip, the sweetness of wild berries on his tongue. 

Death doesn't come as easy as he once thought it would. He bargains with the darkness, begs it to take him, reunite him with all those he's lost. The darkness is not kind. Patrick's wishes of a painless passing turn to ash before his eyes. 

The thick warmth of blood comforts him, the constant beating of his heart like a crash of cymbals about his ears. The footsteps of the soldier draw closer, pounding like water underneath him. He reaches for his gun. 

***

The smell of metal and oil is heavy in the air as Pete thunders across the forest floor. He pushes to keep up with the battalion, his leg wrenching to and fro in its poorly made socket. It doesn't bend like it should, doesn't quite fit, doesn't have the power his other leg harbours, but still, he forces it to its limits. He will not fall behind again. At least, he will not fall behind and live to tell the tale. 

It hurts. It always hurts. But pain is not something he should feel, not something he's programmed to understand. No-one else understands. He's learnt to keep it to himself. 

Those in front shoot at anything that moves. Pete never gets to shoot, never gets the glory of bringing back a kill. His leg keeps him firmly at the back of the group, his marching falling out of time and out of line. Still, he watches for prey, for the unlikely twitch of any creature stupid enough not to flee, the taste of slaughter sharp on his tongue. He will be useful, this time. He will be a machine. 

Perhaps it's his overactive imagination working (imagining is against protocol) when he catches the flash of something running among the distant trees, but he zeroes in on it all the same, his heat sensors flickering. Whatever it is, Pete can outrun it. When he looks around at his comrades, they simply stare ahead. Surely, a short detour for the sake of a kill wouldn't hurt. 

He gradually parts from the group, circling back to the spot from which he saw the flash and slowing to a jog. It's a human, it has to be. Not that Pete's ever seen one before - not alive, anyway. They're dumped into the barracks screaming like animals  or left to rot in the undergrowth. He wonders what it would be like to kill, to sink his fingers into the heat of the creature's chest and rip out its strange circuits. His leg aches with each thrust of speed he attempts. 

Gun raised, he canters towards the movement. He's heard they're savage, the humans, that they'll attack with their bare hands, that they should be killed on sight. Pete simply grits his titanium teeth and prepares himself for a fight, convincing himself he's not scared. 

(Fear is another thing the others don't understand. Pete tries not to dwell on it.) 

There's a rustle in the leaves and Pete pursues it, sniffing the air for the odour that was held to their noses before they were released into the wilderness. It's there, carried on the wind, and his mind tells him precisely what he's been programmed to do. Find, kill. Find, kill. 

It's the cry that sends his programming haywire. Something stirs within him - he's tried to explain it before, to no avail. It's not a crossed wire or a loose connection, it's something less and more at the same time. The scream reminds him with photographic detail of the moment his leg was ripped from its socket. Or, perhaps it's a fox. Either way, he shakes it off. 

He begins to sprint once again, heading towards the yell, the leaves turning to dust under his boots. The trees thin, the air gains a freshness - they were told prey would flock to the lake. The Commanders are never mistaken. When the next scream sounds, it's weaker, pained. Not that Pete knows pain - or at least, he shouldn't. 

The flash of a white hand sends something opposite to pain through him. There's a shoe, too, a feeble human shoe that Pete can squash to a pulp. He almost fires, almost blows the creature's head to smithereens before it can react, but then comes a whimper and Pete very nearly drops his gun. 

When he rounds the tree, what awaits is not what the strategies have taught him. The creature is small, greyish, it's strange little face contorted in something Pete is woefully, wrongfully acquainted with - pain. Perhaps because its leg is caught in the teeth of a trap, its strange fuel oozing over its fragile armour. 

It has no helmet, no visor, just liquid oozing from its eyes, clear and sparkling. It's skin is lighter than Pete's, but smudged with dirt, its small, weak hands covered in its own juices. When it opens its eyes, they focus upon Pete, and Pete watches its circuits convulse. It makes another of those noises, and its faint eyebrows knit in the centre of its face. 

It's something like pity that compels Pete to watch as the creature extends shaking fingers towards its weapon. The bomb is small, fitting for such a feeble creature, and the human raises it towards Pete's face, its eyes squinting up at Pete. 

Pete simply stoops as it tries to pull the pin - it’s too weak. Its hand falls to the floor and its gaze falls upon Pete's machine gun. It pushes out its chin. 

"Do it," the creature says. 

_ English _ , Pete registers. That it speaks at all is an even bigger revelation. Pete cocks his head to one side and gazes at its twitching body, its crumpled face. Humans are much less frightening than he imagined. Pete's not sure what the look in its eyes means, but that's not the face Pete makes when he's angry and the creature doesn't lash out at Pete, so Pete decides it’s safe to crouch down beside the human and examine it more closely. 

"Sex?" Pete asks, his voice buzzing through the grating in his visor. The creature's eyes widen and it shakes its head. Pete has no idea what this means. "You are neither male nor female?" 

The creature frowns, swallows. "Uh - male," it croaks, which is odd, because Pete assumed the males would be bigger. This male is slight, and seems to make itself even smaller each time Pete looks at him. Still - it could still be just as dangerous as Pete was taught. Pete's glad he's wearing armour. 

He reaches out a hand and extends it towards the creature's leaking face. It squirms, twists away from him, whitish liquid foaming from its mouth. A laugh escapes Pete's lips. It's such a silly looking thing.

The skin of its cheek is damp and soft. "Why are you leaking?" Pete asks, touching his finger to the snaking trails on the creature's cheeks. Perhaps it's over-heating, or has punctured its coolant reserves. Pete wonders if his own coolant would do. 

The creature lets out another sob. Pete's not sure if this is a response or a warning - humans are difficult to read. He repeats the question in case the creature didn't hear. 

"I'm - in pain," it finally cries. Pain. Pete knew he wasn't the only one. 

"What does it feel like?" Pete asks, just to be sure. 

The human shakes its head and closes its eyes once more. "Like my leg was mangled in a trap." 

Pete can't quite relate, but he nods anyway. He likes the sound of the creature's voice - it's crisp, clear, like the leaves under their feet or the trickle of a river. "What else do you feel?" 

"I feel as if a monster's about to kill me," it says. 

"What monster?" Pete asks. A sudden urge to protect overtakes him. He must defend the creature from whatever made it leak. But the creature simply gawks at him. 

"You?" it says, incredulous. 

"Oh," Pete responds. He hadn't considered it that way. He lowers his gun, but doesn't drop it. The commanders said the males are more dangerous, more hostile. Then again, the threat that this creature poses seems to have been crushed as soon as it got its leg bitten by the ground monster. 

He glances at the man's leg. The teeth have sunk deep - Pete doesn't think the creature has an exoskeleton. He crawls towards it, towards the strange red juice that pulses from the wounds. 

He pokes a finger into the slash of red between metal and flesh. The human either loves or hates this. Pete does it more. The human's eyes roll back into its head. 

"Is that a happy noise?" Pete asks once the human has stopped screaming. The human stares. 

"Is that - like  _ hell _ it is!" 

This does not answer Pete's question. 

"Anger?" Pete tries. 

"Whatever," the man groans, his face screwed tight. "Please - just finish the job." 

Pete feels sad when he considers shooting the creature in the face. His first live human, and it wants him to kill it. Perhaps he should - the commanders would be so proud. Pete could take its soft skin all for himself. 

His systems urge him to eliminate the threat, but Pete doesn't see one - only a hurt creature in need of help. The idea of help doesn't make Pete feel sad. This must be a good sign. 

The creature's chest moves slowly up and down - that means its engine is still operational. Pete can hear the whirr of its mechanisms, the strange pulse of the red liquid through its circuits. There's so much he wishes he could learn about these creatures. 

On its head, it has fluffy brown hair that shifts in the wind. The human doesn't react when Pete reaches to touch it - it's as soft as it looks, slipping through his fingers like water and delicate as every other part of the human. Pete could so easily pull its head from its shoulders, but he'd much rather stare at the way the creature's nostrils flare, the touch of its tongue to the purplish swell of its lips. Pete wants to help more than he wants to kill. 

Giving the human's head a final pat, he crawls over to the leg. Humans clearly do not have Pete's tissue regeneration abilities - the wound hasn't healed at all in the last five minutes, and the red juice still pulses from underneath the man's leg coverings. Pete kneels by the foot, hovering his hands around the human's knee. The creature watches, its blue eyes fixed upon Pete like lasers. The fear is smeared across its face. Pete feels something he thinks is called empathy. 

Fastening his hands around the jaws of the trap, he thrusts all his might into pulling them apart. The creature's scream jars the metal in Pete's head, sends birds flying from the canopy above, but Pete doesn't stop, feeling the jaws give a little before finally, with a sickening squelch, they loosen. Pete pushes until they click back into place. When he looks up, the human has passed out. Perhaps this is a common survival method among their species - although it doesn't seem to work especially well. Pete could so easily crush its skull with a single fist. 

He doesn't, though. Instead, he gives the creature's thigh a poke. "Man?" he asks, watching the stillness of its face, "Human male? Are you still functional?" 

Its eyes flicker open - they really are the most astounding shade of blue - and it gazes blearily at Pete. Pete wonders if he could take the creature's eyes for himself without killing it. There's no harm in asking. 

"Can I have your eyes?" 

Said eyes widen, still leaking. "What?!" the creature says. Pete clearly has more advanced hearing. 

"Your eyes. May I take them?" 

The creature's mouth attempts to form words several times before it stumbles upon the right ones. "No?" it says. Pete nods his understanding. 

"They make me feel a feeling," Pete tells the man. "Like pain. But - not pain. The opposite of pain. They make me feel the opposite of pain." 

"I - what?" the human says. It lets out another wail of anger when it moves its leg from the trap. Pete wonders if it'll be healed before nightfall. 

"I like them," Pete shrugs. "But I understand if you would prefer not to replace them. Now - go. Be free." 

To this, the man replies with a look of grumpy bewilderment. At least - that's what Pete thinks it is. His in-built dictionary is spewing out words faster than he can learn how to use them. Pete has the strangest urge to lift his visor and show the human that they are not so different after all - but that would be a major violation of protocol and Pete supposes he's done enough rule-breaking for one afternoon. 

As he gets to his feet, he hopes the shock in the human's eyes is the creature's way of saying thank you, and Pete ruffles its hair in response, simply because it makes a bubble of something rise in Pete's core. 

He walks away. Perhaps he should have killed the human - that's his job, after all. But there's another voice, one that isn't simulated or recorded telling him that what he did was a demonstration of something unheard of in the corps - kindness. 

\- 

"Kill count?" Pete's commander barks, as he does every day at the same time and in the same tone. Pete replies as he has since the day he was activated. 

"Zero." It's not a lie - lying isn't permitted - it's an omission of the truth. Pete figures that's okay. The commander gestures for him to move along, but Pete can't help but blurt, "Why must we kill?" 

The slimy eyes of the commander slide to him. "It is your purpose." 

Pete nods and moves on. He feels strange, as if all the current has been sapped from him. He's not sure he wants this to be his purpose. He wonders if he needs reprogramming. 

As he removes his armour, he listens to the snippets of conversation, clings to the stunted communication between his comrades and the commander. There's no anecdotes, no laughter. No-one takes a second look at Pete. But Pete doesn't mind, for once - today, he's had the most communication of any day since his activation. The fact that it was with a malfunctioning human is besides the point. 

"Two," Pete hears a comrade buzz, and when the commander voices their thanks, "they were hostile. But I took their eyes." 

Pete frowns. Perhaps that's why the human seemed so alarmed - they don't like their eyes being taken. The thought that he must have scared the creature makes Pete feel something similar to pain. He makes a mental note to leave the human's body parts in the human's body. 

As he sinks into his cryotube, he still thinks of the human. He wonders if it's safe, hopes the next pair of eyes they bring back won't be that startling blue. Pete wants to see them again - safe in the creature's head - wants to know how they see him. He wonders whether it's worth the risk. 

*

Risk assessment was never Pete's strength. When the barracks split open and the morning patrol dawns raging and thunderous, Pete stares to the east, watching each tree that whips by and each waft of stench they burst through. But Pete could barely smell the human yesterday - what chance does he have today? 

He sees no flash of skin or tuft of hair, but slows anyway as the patrol begins to split, each following scents of the their own. Pete wanders in the direction of the lake, in search of that smell of fresh air and the signs of life that spring near the water. The human aside, there's something he likes about it that he doesn't have the vocabulary to define. He knows how it makes him feel, though; he knows he'd like to feel it all the time. 

When he picks up the scent, he feels the recognition ripple over his titanium skin cells. It's not quite the scent they've been trained with - it's mixed with that same sweet, foreign smell, but there's a sharpness to it, a metallic tooth in the sugar. He can smell pale skin and bloody limbs and defiance that makes him want to bow. Perhaps the human is a commander of his own people - Pete doesn't think anyone but a leader could lie so broken yet act so brave. 

Quickening his pace, Pete follows the trail, scanning the forest for stray comrades. Pete wonders what they might do if they found Pete's human - he suspects they might remove the creature from his living state. The thought makes him hurt in the centre of his being. He's not sure he likes what he's made for. 

The fear plays on his mind as he jogs, and Pete begins to wonder what this new feeling is - the sense that he should move faster or he'll regret it, the sting of future possibilities propelling him forward. His mind supplies the word  _ panic _ .

Then, he sees the tree, the trap. That stench of metal is sickening, the leaves stained with human juices, smudged along the ground ahead. Pete follows it to a thicket of bushes not far from the tree. The heat trace his helmet shows him is unmistakable. 

He tells himself it's too weak to be human, but the smell is unmistakable. A boot peeks from under the leaves. Pete feels pain again. 

A tuft of golden hair rustles in the wind, the white smudge of a hand rests against the dull leaves as Pete pushes the branches apart to reveal what must be a corpse. This is what they look like when they're brought to the barracks - skin greyish, dull, eyes shut and body limp. Save for its leg, the creature's limbs are tucked around itself; the leg lays at an odd angle, splayed and hideous. Pete wonders if the human was this ugly yesterday. Perhaps Pete's remembering things wrong. 

Nevertheless, he crouches down beside it and examines its face. Its skin is moist, dewy and when Pete pokes a finger into its cheek, it doesn't stir. Its engine appears to be slowly turning as Pete rests a hand on its chest - he can still feel the whir of machinery. It's not yet deactivated. 

"Human," Pete says. Pete wishes he knew its name or number. He gives the creature a shake. "Are you alive?" 

For a few seconds, the man simply lays there, his engine ticking over slowly and his eyes still closed. Pete wonders if it has a power switch. There's a hole in the side of its head, nestled among its matted hair - if it's anything like Pete, it uses this for hearing. Pete promptly jams his finger into it. 

The man's body jolts with alarming force and his eyes fly open. They're not as Pete remembers - dull and bloodshot, they seem not to look but to stare, vacant. When they settle on Pete's face, it's as if Pete isn't really there. 

"Are you well?" Pete asks, turning his head to match the angle of the human's. Its hair is swept into its face, sticky with red juices and welded to the man's eyebrows. Pete tries to push it out of the way but the creature flinches with what must be pain. Pete must remember how delicate they are. He sits back a little and tries again. "What is it that you need?" 

The human's eyes roll back into its head. This can't be a good sign - perhaps its battery has died. Pete has no idea where he might find a human battery. His only hope is that the human has a spare. 

"Where do you live?" Pete says loudly, shuffling the leaves in front of the man's face in another attempt to rouse him. "Do you own spare parts?" Perhaps Pete can piece him back together. A new leg, that's all he needs. Maybe some more of that juice, too. 

The man's mouth moves slightly and a small, weak sound slips out. Pete leans closer, his systems deciphering all versions of English he knows. He comes up empty, and shakes his head. 

The creature tries again. This time, its lips move. By the lake is what Pete hears on the creature's breath. 

"East?" Pete asks, and the human's eyes are shut but his head nods an affirmative. Pete's commander was right, they do prefer the water. Perhaps this one isn't used to dry land. It certainly doesn't seem up to walking now. Pete wonders if it would approve of him picking it up. Then again, it doesn't look like Pete has many other options, other than leaving the human to feel its pain all by itself. 

"I am going to pick you up," Pete states. "Is that agreeable?" 

The human doesn't respond. Pete feels a pain that is not his own. He could so easily crush this creature under his boot, earn glory for himself, but the thought has exactly the opposite effect his commanders said it would. 

With both hands, he pushes the human onto its back, steadying its head and neck - those are the most important places on a human. When its leg twists, the creature lets out a groan, its face squeezing and its chest rising rapidly under Pete's hand. Pete realises then that he's going to cause the human great pain. His commanders have said frequently that killing the humans is for their own good, for they are only destroying themselves. Pete stares at the man's bared throat. It would be so easy. 

He refrains. It makes the pain come back if he thinks about taking the human's life. Saving must be a greater kindness than not hurting, he decides. Perhaps if he saves the human, it can tell him about feelings. 

As if he's picking a fallen leaf from the forest floor, Pete lifts the human into his arms and gets to his feet. The creature is light as paper, and Pete is afraid he will crush it if he doesn't concentrate. He can feel the human's engine against his armour, a reminder of how much value he holds in his arms. The pulse of his machinery is calming, somehow. 

He begins to walk east, chasing the chill of the wind and the moisture in the air. He's never seen the lake - another squadron destroyed all life there, the reports state. His commanders have said it was a haven of hostile life, and it was not easily extinguished - then again, they said the same about the human in Pete's arms. Pete hopes it is not so easily extinguished. 

He's beginning to think that the commanders may have omitted a portion of the truth. They can't be wrong, they're never wrong, but if Pete can so easily manipulate facts to his own ends, surely those above him can too? The thought makes Pete feel something sharp in his chest. 

The trees begin to thin around him and he knows he must be close - the brown becomes green, a panorama of life unfolding around him. The lake glitters even in the dull sunlight, a perfect mirror of the sky above. Pete's sharp feeling becomes soft. The human turns his head to face the breeze. 

Pete holds the man a little tighter when a shiver runs across his body - he's so pliable in Pete's arms, he could do with more armour. Pete wonders how these creatures survived so long with not even a hint of exoskeleton. 

"Is this your home?" Pete asks, his gaze wandering around the vast shore of the lake. In the distance, there's a hint of civilisation, blackened and crumbling. Pete wonders if he's too late, but the human extends a red-soaked hand and points to the skeletal structures. His eyes barely open. "Just a little longer," Pete tells him. "Then you'll be fixed." 

They begin to walk in the direction of the ruins. Once his finger drops, the human relaxes against Pete's chest. Pete feels something strong, yet peaceful as the whirr of the human's machinery pulses through Pete's armour - a sense of duty far stronger than that which his commanders have tried to instil. He feels no pain at this. 

Just before the ruins, there are swathes of strange grass, scented and swaying in the gentle breeze. They're soft, feathering as the human's hair as Pete brushes past them. They smell of the human, too - Pete begins to understand how the man has evaded capture for so long. His brain is clearly further advanced than his body. 

Pete tracks through the fields and along the scorched concrete pathways, weaving his way through the familiar lumps of human ruins. Pete's kind did this - he recognises the blue-stained edges to the blackened wood and brick, the utter desolation they've left the town in. The pain returns, sharp and aching. 

As they progress, Pete begins to think that surely, the human cannot live here. It's dead, all of it, all life sapped from it. Humans need shelter, and all shelter has been burned to the bones. Still, Pete soldiers on. 

He passes a long trail of ex-houses when the human stirs once again, its eyes slitting open and its gaze resting upon a patch of crumbling floorboards. It makes a small noise. Pete hopes this means they've arrived. 

But the house is just the same as all the others. When Pete steps over the ruined walls, there's no sign of inhabitants, not even the tiny, six-legged creatures that get between Pete's joints if he stays still for too long. Perhaps the human has lied to him, perhaps this is a trap - but the agony on the creature's face surely cannot be faked. His deadened finger points to the ground beneath Pete's feet. 

"Put you down?" Pete asks, and the human's reply comes in the form of a strangled squeak but Pete's thinks it's affirmative. He lowers the creature to the ground, sliding a hand underneath its head to keep it from dropping against the ashen floor. The human reaches out and scrabbles over the joints of the boards until it grasps at a particularly large gap in the wood. When his fingers close around it, a whole section of the floor seems to shift underneath Pete. 

Pete jumps away, watching the human attempt to wrench the boards from the floor until he realises it's a door. A floor door. The human continues to baffle him. 

Nevertheless, Pete leans and lifts the floor for the creature, pushing it to one side. Underneath, there's a staircase. Pete feels something like what the lake made him feel - the human's survival methods are certainly unorthodox. Pete picks him up once again and carries him down the steps, careful not to catch any of his spindly body parts on the narrow walls. 

When the light runs out, Pete's night vision kicks in and the darkened room reveals itself. It's cluttered with a variety of objects, shelves overflowing with paper, metal, boxes, and a flat frame in the corner on top of which sits soft, spongy fabrics. There's a sturdy-looking table to the right of the room - it's roughly human-sized and Pete decides it'll do. The creature lets out a groan when Pete places it down and steadies its leg. 

"Where are your spare parts?" Pete asks, but the human simply leaks foul-smelling fuel out of its mouth. This can't be a good sign - Pete has to work fast. 

He scans the wall for anything that might help, but his systems only locate one thing - a small green box that says  _ First Aid _ . Pete's dictionary tells him that this means help. He grabs the box and wrenches it open. 

There's no leg inside. There's no bolts or screws or even a soldering iron; just a whole lot of soft fabric and a pair of scissors. Pete has no idea how humans work anymore. What kind of warrior doesn't possess a soldering iron? 

The human itself has powered down again, his body still and his face relaxed. Its chest still rises and falls, though - Pete's learned that this is the human's main engine. It's the place their commanders always tell them to aim for. Pete looks from its body to the box and tries to figure out what to do next - this is far more advanced than he thought it might be. 

There's a small bunch of paper in the box, its edges collected and stuck together. Pete picks it up and some of the paper rips in his fingers. They're covered in human language, tiny little markings and diagrams that Pete squints at before his translator takes over. 

He reads it from cover to cover in under two minutes, scanning the words for pertinent information. Later, he'll contemplate how utterly unfit for this planet humans clearly are, but for now, he thinks he has half an idea of what to do. The creature doesn't have replacement parts, apparently - only its original build - and it grows itself new components, according to the book. When Pete looks at the creature's leg, this seems unlikely. 

Fuel is leaking all over the human, thick and hot over Pete's fingertips as he attempts to manoeuvre the creature's skeleton back into place. The creature does not like this at all - it lets out a loud yell and promptly falls back to the table. Pete decides he ought to keep going - the book said to ignore the screams. 

It also states that cleanliness is of the utmost importance to humans, and even a single molecule of dirt can cause malfunctions. This seems extreme, but Pete uses the bottle of strange smelling liquid specified to rinse the wound until most of the dried juices have been washed away. It's a gruesome business. Humans are far less cute on the inside. 

Pete searches through the drawers until he finds something he can use as a splint, as the book calls it - he finds a strange collection of objects with different sculptures at the ends - one has a bowl attached, another has sharp prongs. He decides these will do, and washes them in the dirt-extermination liquid. 

Taking off the creature's foot armour seems to distress the creature immensely, but Pete does it anyway, casting the soft leather to one side to reveal a frankly disturbing, strange-smelling appendage that looks a little like a hand but most certainly is  _ not _ . Pete tries not to look at it, and instead focusses on tearing away the fabric surrounding its leg. The skin underneath is pale as the sky, softened with sparse fur. Pete decides there'll be time for admiring it later. 

He carefully straps the metal sticks either side of the leg and straps them into place with the fabric provided. The human keeps screaming - it's getting distracting. Pete reaches for the softer, fluffier fabrics and wraps a thick layer around the leg, taping them into place with a length of sticky plastic. When he stands back to look at his work, he thinks he's done a pretty good job. 

The book tells him to make sure the human is comfortable, too. The human, currently, looks about as uncomfortable as it is possible for a living thing to look - his hands are clenched tight to the edges of the table and his throat is taut, small cries crawling from his lips with each breath. Pete leans over its body. 

"Are you comfortable?" he asks loudly. 

The human shakes its head, its mouth opening and closing like the fish Pete's kind poisoned in their droves. "Water," it says, "please."

Pete's not sure what the man would need the lake for, but nevertheless, he moves to pick the creature up once more. Perhaps it's amphibious and it needs moistening. 

"No!" the human yelps as Pete tries to scrape it into his arms, its unbroken limbs flailing. "Water -  _ water _ -" Its hand points to a row of large barrels in the corner of the room. Pete drops the creature back to the table in his panic, its head cracking against the wood and its face squeezing with pain. 

"I am sorry," Pete says, "I - uh, water," he finishes, making for the barrels and pulling off the lid of the first one he touches. Inside, there's more clear liquid - perhaps it's coolant. Pete cups his hands together and dips them into the liquid, then hurries to the human and offers him the water. 

The creature looks from Pete's face to his hands with alarm, his brows furrowing in the centre of his face and his mouth downturned. Pete thinks this means he's in pain, but then he raises a hand and guides Pete's fingers closer to his face. It's only when the creature's lips part that Pete begins to understand what the water is for. 

The human's mouth is somehow even softer than the rest of its skin, giving easily under Pete's fingertips as he tips the water forward. Pete watches, entranced, as the water disappears into the human. What a strange place for a fuel tank, and what unorthodox fuel. The commanders never mentioned this in their briefings. 

When all the water is gone, the human makes a noise of something like satisfaction and falls back to the table, his pink tongue running over his lips. Pete has a tongue, too, but only for forming words, not for lapping up stray fuel. The creature seems to rely solely on different forms of liquid to stay functional. 

But the man still doesn't seem completely comfortable - he fumbles with the weapon at his belt where it digs into his side and knocks it to the floor. His heavier armour still wraps around his torso, black and shiny, so Pete helps him sit up and shed the layer, revealing something thinner and softer underneath. Through it, Pete can see the planes of its chest and the curve of its stomach. He wants to touch, but the creature lets out a frustrated noise and Pete snatches his hand back. He wonders how he can make it more comfy. 

There's another surface in the corner of the room, the one covered with thick fabrics and assorted sponges. It looks far more apt for such a soft creature, so Pete very carefully lifts it from the table and places it down on the layers. 

It seems to like this very much, its previously tense joints relaxing and its face burrowing into a headrest. It curls its hands into the sheets and closes its eyes - rest is what the book said was needed. Pete thinks this means it needs to charge. 

"Rest," Pete tells the human as he kneels close to its face, "heal." 

For once, the human seems to obey Pete's orders and its head falls to one side, limp and still. For a few seconds, Pete simply looks at it, contemplates why its strange face makes Pete feel freshly rebooted. He wants to look after it, to care for it. It will need a guardian, and Pete decides he is up to the task.

He sits himself upon a wooden chair at the opposite end of the room and switches to battery saver mode. His background thoughts fade by increments, leaving him with only the image of the resting human in front of him. He feels the opposite of pain. Just before it powers down, his dictionary tells him that this is called happiness. Pete likes the feeling. 

For the first time since he was created, he has a purpose. 

*

The first thing Patrick notices when he wakes up is how hungry he is. His stomach seems to rattle the whole room as it rumbles, writhes - it's unlike him to forget to eat. Starvation is far more likely to kill him than a bullet, that's what his mother always used to tell him. Perhaps he forgot to eat dinner last night. 

The second thing Patrick notices is that he can't move his leg, and as soon as he tries, he realises why - it hurts like a motherfucker, the dull ache springing into a sharp stab of pain. All of a sudden, he remembers the bear trap, remembers dragging himself across the floor in his agony. It's a miracle he made it home. 

It's almost entirely dark in his house, save for the few winking blue lights at the far side of the room. Patrick thinks nothing of them until he swears he sees one move. 

There's a robot in Patrick's house. After twenty years of running, of surviving, they've finally caught him. He knew it had to end at some point, he simply hoped it would be after their base went up in a fiery explosion or Patrick wrestled one of them over the edge of a cliff. He reaches for his grenade, but it's gone. When he tries to scramble away, his leg shrieks and there's nowhere to run but into the wall. The robot steps towards him. Patrick prepares to meet his maker. 

"Are you fully charged?" Its voice is surprisingly, unnervingly human. It makes Patrick's skin crawl. 

"What?" is all Patrick can think to say. He hopes it's not his final word.

"Are you healed?" The robot is less than three feet away from him, dressed in the armour that has plagued Patrick's nightmares for decades. Patrick's never seen one so close - he has no idea why he's still alive. 

"No," he says slowly. He wonders if the robot is assessing his suitability for experimentation. He'd rather be shot than kept as a lab rat. "I'm broken. You don't want me." 

"I'm broken too," the soldier says, taking another step forward. Something clunks awkwardly against the floor, and Patrick sees that the robot's leg is not really a leg at all; a metal pipe sticks awkwardly from the joint of its knee, rusted and tarnished compared to the gleaming metal of its other limbs. Patrick glances at his own freshly bandaged and splinted leg. He can't have done that himself. 

"Was this you?" Patrick asks. Perhaps it's laced with poison - perhaps he no longer has a leg at all. 

"The First Aid told me how," the soldier says, gesturing towards the shadows of the shelves against the wall. Patrick's got a whole room stuffed with medical supplies and he's been patched up with bandages older than he is. Brilliant. He sits forward and pokes at the bindings, dreading to think what kind of mess his leg is in. 

But the room soon begins to spin and his stomach lets out a long whine. The robot tips to one side and soon Patrick's collapsed back to his bed, his muscles like the jelly Patrick saves for special occasions. He can smell vomit on his breath - he needs to eat. 

"What is the matter?" the robot asks. It's disconcerting, its helmet hornet-like and trained upon Patrick. "Do you need something?" 

Patrick desperately needs a lot of things - food, water, a friend that isn't part of his own conscience - but he says nothing, narrowing his eyes at the soldier. "Who are you?"

"My name is Pete." 

Patrick snorts. "Pete? You're a robot. You don't have a name, you have - I dunno, a serial number." 

The soldier's head tilts to one side. "I named myself," it says. "What is your name?" 

Patrick frowns. It's all a trap, it has to be. "Why are you here," Patrick asks. "Are there more of you?" 

"It is just me," the robot - Patrick refuses to call it Pete - says. "You were hurt. I took you home. I did not want you to power off." 

"But - you hunt us," Patrick says, his voice rising and his leg burning with pain, "you kill us for sport, you've killed my family, my friends, why the hell are you here?! Why would you help me?!" 

The robot takes a small step back, a shadow falling over its visor. "I am sorry," it says. "I did not mean to - are you angry?" 

" _ Yes _ , I'm angry!" Patrick all but yells, "What are you doing in my house?!" 

The robot stays silent for a few seconds, its lights blinking. Then, it spreads its empty hands wide. "I did not mean to anger you. I have no weapon - I do not want to hurt you." 

"That's what you're made for," Patrick hisses, "to kill. You want to hurt everything, especially humans. You're made that way." 

"Not me," the robot says. "I - I feel. Emotions. Like you. I feel pain, I feel - the opposite. Can you help me?" 

It's lying, there's no other explanation. Robots don't feel. It must be a new protocol - gain the human's trust, then blow them to smithereens. "Take off your helmet," Patrick demands. He's never seen a soldier without one - he wants to look the monster in the eyes as he figures out its master plan. 

"I am not permitted," the robot says. Of course it isn't. Patrick shuts his eyes. 

"Why don't you just kill me," he spits. He can't walk - he'll be dead within the week, anyway. 

"I - I do not want to," it says. "The prospect makes me feel pain." 

"You've no idea what pain is," Patrick laughs, his chest twinging at the thought of all he's lost, all he mourns. 

"It makes me hurt," the soldier says, "here." When Patrick cracks his eyes open, the robot's got a hand over its non-existent heart. "And - I will take off my helmet, if that would satisfy you." 

"It would," Patrick says, mimicking the robot's rigid tone. The mocking somehow helps him ignore his impending demise. 

But when the soldier removes his helmet, what's underneath makes Patrick's empty stomach turn. A face - a dreadfully lifelike human face. Patrick stares. It has skin and eyes that light softly as they meet Patrick's, hair cropped short and tightly curled. Patrick doesn't want to know where it got the features from, but he asks anyway. 

"Are you wearing the dead fucking face of my species," Patrick growls, glaring at the creature. At least if he provokes it, it might kill him faster. 

The robot's thick eyebrows rise in alarm. "No! No, it is - a replica. Human skin is far too weak for us," he says, like it makes the situation any better. "Not that - well, you  _ are _ sort of - I am sorry. We are based on you, that is how we were able to integrate." 

This makes far more sense. "Of course. So, are you gonna kill me? Because if you are, I'd rather skip the small talk." 

"Oh - no," the robot-man says quickly, "I do not mean to deceive you. I want only to learn. I am not like the others." 

This is about as likely as Patrick ever walking again, but this is the first conversation Patrick's had in years. Perhaps he should humour the monstrous killing machine. "What are you feeling right now?" 

"I feel - pain. That I have angered you," it says, "but not pain that you did not power down." 

It's somehow far easier to believe it now that Patrick can see its face, the way its big brown eyes beg for Patrick's approval. Of course it's cute - that makes it easier for it to seduce its prey. "So - you're happy I woke up?"

"Yes!" it chirps, "Happy. I did not fail you. You did not sleep forever. I am responsible for your safety." 

" _ I _ am responsible for my safety," Patrick corrects, "and who tasked you with guarding me?" 

"You are weak," the soldier says matter-of-factly. "And no-one tasked me but myself. My commanders do not know that I am here." 

"Whatever," Patrick says. "Don't lie to me. Why haven't you killed me?" 

The soldier pauses - perhaps this is when it snaps, perhaps this is it, Patrick's outstayed his welcome on this Earth - but then it sits down at the foot of the bed and looks at him thoughtfully. Patrick becomes instantly self-conscious. "I had not seen a human so close. I thought we were being ordered to kill monsters, but then I saw you, and I saw your pain - the same as my pain. And I saw you are not a monster. I wanted to - help. You are a fascinating creature." 

Patrick frowns from where he lays, watching the robot knit his fingers together as if he's nervous. For a killing machine, he looks oddly forlorn. Patrick hasn't made a friend in twenty years. He props himself up on his elbows. "My name’s Patrick." 

The robot's eyes light. "Patrick," it repeats. Patrick had almost forgotten how the name sounded aloud. "That makes me happy. Patrick." 

Patrick gives the robot an odd look, but this is clearly too advanced for it and instead it mimics Patrick's head-tilt. When Patrick smiles, it copies that too. 

For a few moments, they sit in silence, the robot's machinery whirring and Patrick's heart beating in his ears. His leg throbs - he's going to need a hell of a lot of painkillers if he's going to keep himself alive. Whenever he even thinks about it for too long, the pain skirts the boundaries of bearable. 

"I am sorry I asked for your eyes," the robot says suddenly, and it's possibly the strangest sentence Patrick's heard since his mother told him robots had infiltrated her office, "I did not realise you did not have spares." 

"That's - alright, I guess," Patrick replies. 

"I am also sorry if I hurt you. You were in pain when I found you, and I worsened it. Was that kind of me?" 

Patrick's not sure he understands the question, but the very fact that the killing machine is asking him about kindness is a good sign, he supposes. When he thinks about it, though, the last thing he remembers is passing out under a bush. "You - you carried me home," he wonders aloud. 

The robot - Pete - nods. "You needed repairs." 

Patrick feels something he hasn't felt in a long while - gratitude. "Thank you. Yes, that was kind." 

Pete's armoured shoulders slope and his mouth spreads into a half-smile. Patrick wonders what that skin feels like - whether it's waxy and synthetic or soft and alive. He's not sure which would be more disturbing. "That is - uh - " 

"A relief?" Patrick supplies. At least, that's what he hopes Pete's feeling. 

"Yes! Relief," Pete says, "I feel relief that you are not angry, and that I have successfully carried out an act of kindness." 

"Would you like to perform another?" Patrick asks as his stomach lets out its loudest rumble yet. He feels gutted, empty, a corpse masquerading as something living. Sugar, that's what he needs. It's saved his sanity many times before. 

When the robot nods, Patrick points to the cupboard in the far corner of the room. "Could you open that door and fetch me one of the brown shiny things?" 

"It would make me immensely happy to do so," Pete says emphatically, springing to his mismatched feet and hurtling across the room. Patrick supresses a smile - he's always wanted a robot butler. Pete nearly yanks the cupboard door off its hinges in his haste, and picks the holy grail of foodstuffs out of its stuffed innards. "One of these?" he asks. 

Patrick nods, already salivating at the thought. He generally saves them for special occasions, but if being saved by a weed hacker on legs isn't cause for a celebration, nothing is. 

"What is it?" Pete asks as he returns, his brows furrowing as if immersed in complex calculations. "What does it do?" He hesitates to hand it to Patrick, still examining the packet. 

"It's called chocolate," Patrick says, "it makes me feel better." Chocolate has quite literally been his only friend in the past few years - he takes the bar from Pete and holds it carefully in his hands. 

"You put it in your mouth?" Pete questions, sitting uncomfortably close to Patrick on the bed. "Is it fuel?" 

The smell hits Patrick as soon as he opens the packet, the silky sweetness dizzying - or perhaps that's just the blood loss. He almost forgets Pete is there as he imagines it melting on his tongue. "Uh - yeah," he says absently. He struggles with the wrapping - he thinks he'll pass out if he doesn't eat something soon. The chocolate's cold, unrelenting as he tries to break a piece off. 

He's strong - he wouldn't still be breathing if he wasn't - but his fingers tingle as he tries to press them into the chocolate, his arms giving up the ghost and his head beginning to spin with the exertion. He needs a few days of sleep, and a few days more of nourishment - his vision doubles as his shaking hands scrabble at the chocolate. 

But just as he's about to give up and sink his teeth into the bar, a large hand removes it from his grasp and crushes it in front of his eyes. When it's returned to his hands, it's nothing more than rubble. Patrick looks up at the robot. 

"You needed - help?" it asks, and Patrick can't help but think Pete should have asked that question before he crushed Patrick's food to dust. In that moment, Patrick realises the threat Pete poses. 

Whatever his intentions, he's a machine meant for killing - he's Lenny and Patrick's a mouse caught in his grasp. He'll get his spine crushed before they manage to forge a friendship. It becomes dreadfully clear how delusional Patrick has been. 

"You can't stay here," Patrick says, suddenly wary of angering the robot. "Thanks for your help, but I'll be fine." 

Pete's face falls. "Was that unkind?" he asks. 

Patrick shakes his head. He's not about to debate ethics with a member of the species that has murdered everyone he's ever known. "It's fine. But we're not supposed to be friends." 

"Friends?" the robot asks. "What is friends?" 

"Like - it doesn't matter," Patrick sighs, "just go. For both our sakes. They'll be looking for you." 

The robot frowns, then nods slowly. "I should inform my commanders of my location." 

"Uh - okay, you know what would be kind?" Patrick says quickly, "Could you, y'know, wait 'til you're a couple miles away before you do that? Otherwise they'll catch me." 

"And - if that happens, they will kill you," the robot finishes. "I do not want that." 

Patrick watches the robot stand and back away from the bed. It looks sad, disappointed perhaps - not that it would know what that means. "Thanks for - uh, this," Patrick says before he changes his mind, gesturing to his bandaged leg.

"It was no trouble," the robot replies. "You are extraordinary." 

Before Patrick can think of an adequate response, the robot has gone. 

*

"Well? Did you kill anything?" Pete's commander asks as Pete approaches the door to the barracks. "You were gone long enough." It's dark now. Patrick's house is further away than Pete thought it was. Pete will sleep all the more soundly in his cryotube due to this fact. 

"No," Pete says, and for once, it's not with his usual shame that he admits it. "I did not. I got lost, is all." The lie rolls off his tongue. It doesn't bother him.

"Why is that, do you think, number four-oh-four-five?" his commander asks. Even with his helmet on, Pete can see the creature's slimy tendrils beneath his visor. There was a time when Pete wished for those same tendrils - now, he thinks only of pale skin and soft cheeks. 

"It's Pete," he corrects. 

"What?" 

"My name. It is Pete." 

The commander is silent for a few seconds, then drives his heavy boot into Pete's faulty kneecap. Pete knows he is not supposed to feel his pain, to show his feelings, but he cries out anyway, unable to stop himself. He staggers backwards, clutching at his leg.

"You had better kill," the commander hisses, "or we will mark you as faulty.” 

Pete knows that threat well. He’s seen the humans in the cages, the ones who scream until they lose their voices. The thought of this is not as scary as the thought of killing, though. He suspects his commander does not want to see any more of Pete, and limps inside the barracks, still nursing his leg. 

As he walks into his quarters, he's met with nothing but silence. Patrick is the only creature to have held a conversation with him for longer than two minutes. Pete's leg throbs, and he imagines they are united in their pain as he sinks into his cryotube. He wonders how Patrick will feed himself if he cannot walk, how he will defend his unarmored body. He wonders how much he himself would risk to find out. 

*

He cannot help but go back. Even as his patrol drifts west, he parts from them, searching for the faint smell of human fuel and that fresh air that makes him feel a strange kind of happiness. The town looks just as it did the day before, desolate and ruined, but Pete knows, now, knows what a haven of life it really is. 

He wanders through the abandoned streets, pausing only to stare wistfully at the house he knows is Patrick's. He can't go in, can't show himself when Patrick so clearly did not want him around, but he can revel in their closeness, in the fact that with each step through the town, he learns a little more about the human. 

What looked dead and skeletal is in fact bursting with colour - the human has dedicated each patch of earth outside the houses to a different type of leaf, some short and fluffy, others standing tall with broad leaves and thick stems. One even has a collection of flat screens tilted towards the skies, black as the night sky. It's all strangely beautiful, just like the human itself. 

Pete wants to help, but he doesn't know how. The human must need these things, must grow them for a reason, but is unable to get to them. Which will heal him? Which will fuel him? Pete desperately wishes to know. The thought of the human powering down alone and uncared for is one that makes Pete feel a greater pain than ever. 

Impulsively, he crouches to the ground and pulls at one of the stems. The leaves look juicy, nourishing - the human might eat them. What Pete doesn't expect, though, is the strange orange spike that comes out of the ground with it, swinging from the roots and scattering dirt over Pete's lap. Pete has no idea what it is or whether it's dangerous, and his dictionary is no help whatsoever. The human surely doesn't live off this alone - then again, perhaps this is some super-battery that will last him years on end. Pete hopes that this is the case, and scuttles back towards Patrick's home, cradling the plant. 

He feels something odd as he hovers over the trapdoor - it's not quite pain, not quite happiness, and it certainly isn't relief. It's quite the opposite in fact; Pete feels shaky, uncertain of himself and his actions. He leans down and pushes the door to one side, his chest buzzing when he sees a crack of light underneath. 

He thinks about opening it fully, about greeting the human again and making certain he's alive and well, but the strange feeling gets the better of him and he simply drops the plant into the hole, then shuts the trapdoor and runs well away. 

For the remainder of the day, Pete thinks of the human, even as he approaches the rest of his comrades and tells them the same lie he told his commander. They barely notice him; he's starting to like it this way. 

They do not catch any humans. Pete wonders what will happen when they do - he's seen human bodies, human skin draped from his comrades backs, but never seen the light leaving one's eyes, never listened to its screams. It no longer seems an honourable pursuit. He's become accustomed to lying - each grunt of encouragement and bark of affirmation is simply an act. He has nothing in common with these soldiers other than the metal he's made of. 

The next day, he waits until the sun has reached its highest point in the sky before he heads towards the lake. Along the way, he collects some leaves that have fallen from the trees. He crushes the first few by accident, the thin skins cracking in his fingertips or simply disintegrating before his eyes, but once he learns to hold his palm flat and clamp them ever so gently with his thumb, he picks out those that most remind him the human. Some match his golden brown hair, others, his slender frame - a few simply make Pete feel the same way he does when Patrick's lovely eyes meet his own. Pete gathers them in his arms and heads towards Patrick's home. 

But when Pete's picked his way through the ruins and towards the trapdoor, something is already waiting for him. At first, he thinks it's a block of wood, sculpted and painted, but as he examines it more closely, he sees it's a collection of paper bound with thicker, coloured paper. 

Placing the leaves on the ground in the order he'd like Patrick to look at them, he picks up the object with both hands. The cover states that it's a Farmer's Almanac. The first pages are the basics, and Pete suddenly understands - the human is teaching him how to help. More importantly, he wants him to help. This revelation makes Pete feel happier than he thought he could be - the human trusts him with a task. In that moment, he swears he'll do anything to carry it out. Sitting back against the wall, he opens the almanac and begins to read. 

Two hours later, and Pete's collected all the slimy creatures - the text calls them 'slugs' and Pete is disappointed to learn that the author doesn't find them nearly as adorable as he himself does - from the plants, weeded out any plants that aren't wanted in the patches, and propped up all the stalks that have bent or fallen in the wind. The writing says he must do this every day. Pete revels in the knowledge that he must come back here again and again. 

Nothing is yet ripe enough to harvest, much to Pete's dismay, so he slopes away from Patrick's home and back towards his comrades. He swears, one day, he won't go back. 

 

And so each day, he does his duty, tending to the human's tasks as the writing instructs him. He leaves Patrick all the things he finds that make him happy - smooth stones from the lakeside, colourful, soft feathers and shiny pieces of metal Pete likes the shape of. In return, Patrick leaves him books, as Pete learns they're called, human teachings about the earth. Sometimes, there's sections marked and circled, such as the chapter about collecting water and maintaining the solar panels - others are simply human stories. These are Pete's favourite. 

He often doesn't understand what they mean, but he feels more human with each page he turns, each character he gets to know. He travels the earth from the ruins of the town, learns to name each of his emotions, understand his own workings a little more. For weeks, he lives a thousand miles away in worlds of human design. 

Until one day, he sees the human. He waits at the edge of the woodland, ready to tend to the human's tasks, when a figure limps into view, leaning heavily on a stick but upright all the same. Pete smiles, then - shows happiness on his face like the humans do and feels it in his heart. Patrick is safe. Patrick is well. Pete has helped. 

He watches for a while, seeing the sun dance through the human's hair and the grasses part under his hands. His leg looks better, fresh bandages wrapping it and metal securing his knee and ankle. Pride is what Pete feels, pride and relief. 

But then, Patrick returns to his home, and Pete's happiness fades a little. Patrick has no use for him now - Pete has no reason to return. Pete supposes that one last look can't hurt. 

There's one last book waiting for him when he does. It sits atop the trapdoor, and Pete's heart leaps. He picks it from the ground and leafs through it, hoping for exactly what he finds - a circled passage, from a land called Proust. "Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." 

Pete reads it several times over, committing it to memory. Then, he places the book back where he found it and walks away. It's enough. 

*

The screams sound exactly like Patrick's. Pete's leg screams too as he bolts in their direction, hammering through the trees in search of the human. Perhaps he's hurt again, perhaps he's caught in another of those traps, perhaps he's been shot. Another scream rings out - Pete didn't know a sound could cause such solid pain. 

Then he sees them - his comrades. There's three of them, gathered around something. It's Patrick, it must be - Pete thunders towards the soldiers and shoves between two of them, stopping short before Patrick, what's he doing so far from home, what is he thinking - 

It's not Patrick. Pete looks down to see what he's been taught is a female. She looks as scared as Patrick did, those same tears leaking down her face and blood seeping through her clothes. Pete's comrades stare, mock, jeer like she's something to be laughed at. Pete feels a stab of hatred for his own kind. 

They're squabbling over who gets to kill her. Pete sees that both her legs are intact, and dives for her, grabbing her forearm and dragging her to her feet. 

"Run," he says, "run, human." 

She does. She makes it four yards before she's shot in the back. She collapses to the ground, and lies still. 

A comrade walks to inspect her body. The pain that rushes through Pete almost brings him to his knees - her skin is a similar colour to Pete's, her dark hair in the same tight curls. She wasn't armed. It's so obviously wrong that Pete does not understand how he didn't see it sooner, how none of his comrades have noticed. 

Pete used to think that what they were doing was good, honourable. Now, he sees that they are not the heroes in this story, but the ruthless villains. Most of Patrick's books have a happy ending - Pete does not think this tale will. The humans' weakness is inseparable from their beauty. They fall because they are kind, because they are gentle. 

His comrade hauls the body over his shoulder and begins to march back towards the barracks. Pete sees Patrick in her open, terrified eyes and feels a sickness as he realises how close he himself was to being that killer, taking that life. Perhaps that woman was someone's Patrick. The smell of her blood drifts on the air. 

The pain becomes too much to bear - Pete cannot push it from his eyes, cannot bleed, cannot tear at himself, so he lets out a cry, his body wracked by its force and his hands scratching at his helmet. He's already exposed himself - he cannot bring himself to care. 

"Comrade," someone says in Pete's native language. It sounds harsh, cutting in comparison to human words. "You told it to - run?" 

Pete can't think of the words to defend himself. "They want to survive," is what he lands on, croaked and full of too-human emotion, "that's all." 

His comrade tilts his armoured head. "They run. We hunt." 

"No," Pete says, "we don't need to kill them. They're not a threat." 

His comrade is quiet for a few seconds, then raises a forearm to his visor. "Commander. We have a defector."

* 

The river stings with a cold Pete isn't supposed to feel. He can still feel the echoes of his comrades' hands against his skin, their fingers leaving dents in his armour. He can't bring himself to care. He knew this would happen - he's just grateful it happened before they forced him to kill something. 

He hopes they remember him this way, as the soldier who would not back down. The water envelops him, his floating limbs brushing against the pebbles of the riverbed, the sunlight filtering through the water and creating pretty golden patterns over the rocks around him. It reminds him of Patrick's hair, how it would shine in the sunlight. He hopes, if Patrick were to hear of this, he'd be proud. 

He doesn't thrash, doesn't struggle. The world around him spins slowly, tiny fish flitting into his eyeline, their silver scales catching the light. It had to end this way, and Pete is glad. He feels more free than ever before. 

But the serenity can't last forever. He's seen his comrades dispose of their dead in this way, seen the jagged rocks at the end of the river, the sharp drop of the waterfall. They wouldn't let him go without being sure of his demise. The water begins to pick up speed, the sunlight flickering and disappearing under the haze of churning, opaque foam. A rock smacks his bad leg and the pain sends bubbles from his mouth. His panic, for once, is his own. 

Death doesn't feel quite as sweet a release when he's hurtling towards it, blind and scared. The pebbles begin to drop away, replaced with sharp, jagged edges that nip and tear at Pete's exoskeleton. Pete simply shuts his eyes and waits for it all to be over. When the rocks fall away, Pete's body goes with them. 

The last thing he feels is the smash of glass and the relief that, as he sinks into the abyss, it didn't hurt too much. 

*

Patrick's getting bored of carrots. He's hoarded enough to fill three freezers and eaten another barrel more. He wonders if he'll turn orange, like his sister once said he would if he ate too many. 

The harvest this year has been excellent - at least he can be sure he won't starve. He's a little low on meat, since the six foot robots wiped out everything that moved in the surrounding ten miles, but there's always fish and the odd rat that stumbles into his traps. Rat meat is surprisingly succulent. 

His leg is slowly healing. He's taken a few quick glances at it as he's changed his bandages - he's not missing as much flesh as he once thought, and although the scarring will be extensive, walking doesn't seem such a pipe dream anymore. He can just about put weight on it, and so long as he doesn't push himself too hard too fast, he can hobble around his fields pretty well. This winter may not be his last. 

That being said, he's still scared. Every winter, he's scared a generator will pack up or a batch of veg will go bad - all it takes is the wrong germ in his water supply and he's a goner, left to rot in a tomb of his own making. 

And then there's the loneliness. The hours of talking to himself, the silences if he doesn't, the books he's read a hundred times and the books he tries to write. His guitar sits in pride of place in the corner of the room, his only source of comfort in the dark days ahead. The sudden rushes of snow mean he can barely leave his home, the trapdoor sealed shut under three feet of certain death. If the temperature drops, he's practically bedridden, unable to leave his nest of blankets for fear of losing the heat he's accumulated. The animals abandon him, even the insects flee. In the coming months, he'll be absolutely and totally alone. 

The frost is coming heavy and gruelling by now. Patrick wakes up warm, but has to crawl from the safety of his bed and into the freezing wilderness outside. The cold makes his leg ache. Perhaps he'll make some hot soup tonight, he certainly got enough veg for it. 

Outside, the ground is tinged with white and unyielding under Patrick's boots. He shivers in his coat, the cold beginning to seep through the hand grasping his walking stick. He decides he'll get this over with, then go back to bed. 

He cleans off the solar panels and unsticks the wind turbines where they've frozen still. There'll be a time when he won't be able to rely on them - he can only hope he's accumulated enough energy to see him through. His leg begins to complain - he tries not to think about his slowly depleting supply of painkillers.

The lake seems so much further away since his injury, but he supposes he has to trudge there anyway, knowing he needs to collect his fishing nets before it all freezes over. He should make the most of being able to wash himself in the lake, too, particularly his hair - he gets awfully stale in the winter months. 

His crutch scuffs against the dirt as he makes his way down to the lakeside, taking it slow so as not to fall on his face. He likes the lake - it seems the only thing untouched by the catastrophe, still and beautiful as ever. It reminds Patrick that despite everything, he is free. 

Only - today it's not quite untouched. The water laps at Patrick's boot as he looks along the shore at the black shiny lump he's sure he hasn't seen before. He reaches for his knife. He thinks he knows what it is already - perhaps this is some new strategy, playing dead to take advantage of human curiosity. Patrick limps towards it with caution. 

The pile is motionless, but as Patrick nears, he'd know that blackened metal anywhere. It's a soldier, a crumpled pile of soldier. He'd know those masks anywhere, too, only this one glitters in the sunlight, shards of glass spread in a sparkling halo. It sure is an elaborate show - perhaps this one truly is dead. He's suddenly wary of what demonic creature might've been able to kill it, and whether it's still near. 

It's armour is pretty intact, and Patrick's mind reels at what he could with it - a chest plate like that and he'd never have to worry about being killed out in the open. Perhaps he could even fix his leg. But as he observes the creature in front of him, he sees it doesn't have a complete leg - the metal is ripped and jagged, and Patrick suddenly remembers where he's seen a fault like this before. 

With a groan of pain, he sinks into a crouch, sticking his leg out at the only angle at which it doesn't begin to scream. The soldiers visor has shattered, revealing exactly the face Patrick thought he might see - it's Pete. It's the soldier that saved Patrick's life, dead on the ground in front of him. 

Now, under normal circumstances, Patrick would write this creature off, count his death as a small victory, one less hunter on his tail. He'd salvage what he could, take the thing to bits to see exactly how it ticks. Then, he'd leave it all to rust. 

But of course, his stupid morality is his downfall. This robot saved his life. It more than a robot, in fact, it had thoughts, feelings, it possessed a kindness that it would be inhuman not to return. It had a name, after all. Patrick sighs, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip. He supposes he better do the damned right thing. 

He figures the damage is mostly water-related, and tries to drag the creature away from the shoreline - it'll barely budge. Even with a healthy leg, he'd struggle to lift that much. He decides he'll need the help of his trusted companion, the sled. 

Two hours later and the robot is in his house, slowly being covered in the endless bags of rice Patrick tips over him. Dragging the creature up the banks of the lake took most of Patrick's will to live - the soldier is an awkward shape, his feet catching on the pebbles and his arms flailing like flags - but he managed it in the end, shoving the soldier down the stairs and plonking his limp form into a plastic tub Patrick sometimes bathes in. 

He smothers Pete with the grains, tugging the helmet from his head and checking closely for any worrying abrasions. There's one at his hip, frayed wires poking from underneath the skin and the metal torn. Patrick purses his lips at it, then limps to fetch his soldering iron. 

But even after he's welded the last of the wires back together, his fingers burnt through his gloves, the robot doesn't move. Patrick pulls one of his eyes open and shines a light in his iris - nothing. He tries pressing on the robot's chest - still nothing. His wounds are still exposed, perhaps they need patching up. Patrick solders scrap metal over the wires, closing up each edge, even on the tiny scratches. Still nothing. 

Jump leads weren't things Patrick ever thought he'd use, but he decides they're worth a shot, attaching each to either side of Pete's chest. The first shock causes Pete to convulse, and his eyes fly open - then fall shut once more, motionless. The second simply makes him twitch like a half-dissected frog. Sweat beads on Patrick's brow, his fingers sore and his leg sorer, his patience in tatters. All this for some murderous monster. 

He lugs a second battery onto the table, out of breath and parched, and completes the circuit. When he touches the clips to Pete's chest, he feels the force of the shock rattle through his bones before he realises he's on the ground, his face pushed to the ragged carpet and his body tingling. 

When he drags himself to his knees, the robot's eyes are open. 

* 

The first thing Pete sees is Patrick. He's read about Heaven in Patrick's books - perhaps this is it. He's never felt lighter, his head spinning gently and his limbs feeling frothy, bubbling. He rather likes it. 

Patrick does not look so happy. His hair stands a little on end and his mouth is curved into a clear frown. "You look odd," is the first thing out of Pete's mouth. 

"No shit," Patrick says, and Pete doesn't know precisely what this means but he doesn't think it's a compliment. When he looks around, though, he’s in Patrick’s home again, nestled in a tub of - well, something. Small, white grains trickle through his fingers as he wiggles them. The expression in the human’s eyes clearly doesn’t extend to his heart. 

“What is this?” Pete asks, then remembers the book, the intricate diagrams of crops just like this one. “Rice!” 

Patrick doesn’t look so thrilled with Pete’s realisation as Pete himself is - he gets to his mismatched feet and positively glares at Pete. “ _ Yes,  _ rice,” he yelps, exasperated, “ _ all  _ the rice! All  _ my  _ rice! In fact, quite possibly, all the rice in the state! I hope you’re grateful! You - can you be grateful? Well, you  _ should  _ be!” 

Pete’s never heard Patrick’s voice sound so similar to fingers dragged over glass, and he frowns at the flapping human. “Have I angered you?” 

With a sigh, Patrick pulls a chair towards him and falls into it, patting down his spiked hair. “No,” he says. “I’m glad you’re awake.” 

This puzzles Pete. “I cannot sleep.” He thinks back to the events of the night before, and finds no data. All he has is the recollection of falling. “I - am struggling to determine my immediate timeline.” 

Patrick lets out a small laugh that does nothing to ease Pete’s confusion. “I don’t know what happened to you, but I found you in the lake, all - dead, and stuff. So I put you in a rice bath, and then, like, jump started you. Voila.”

“You saved me?” Pete says quietly. It’s happiness and he feels it like a second electric shock - the human cared enough to save his life. His existence is worth preserving. 

“You did it for me,” Patrick shrugs, getting to his feet and and pulling off his feeble hand armour. His face is redder than normal, his skin shimmering with a sheen of moisture. 

“Why are you wet?” Pete asks. “Do you need rice too?” 

“No,” Patrick says, wiping at the water on his face and examining his fingers. “I’m hot and bothered from dragging a robot into a bath.” 

“Okay,” Pete says. He’s missed Patrick’s peculiarity. Just watching the human amuses Pete - the way his lips move even when he’s not speaking, the way his nostrils twitch. He’s so full of energy, it spills from his features at all times. Pete could look at him for hours. 

But when Pete shifts to stand, perhaps to sit with Patrick and learn, he feels a twitch in his side, a twist of something that wasn't there before. He looks down to see a patch of alien metal at his hip, smudged along the edges where it's been melted into position. "Did you do this?" 

Patrick nods, glancing away from Pete. "It'll do for now, I guess." 

Pete smiles widely, watching the human's fingers twitch in his lap. He feels a warmth that doesn't come from the rice bath when he considers that Patrick must have touched him, perhaps held him - then he feels sad that he doesn't remember it. There is something about the creature that makes Pete want him near. He wonders if Patrick feels the same way, and nearly asks - then cowers when the human rises from his seat and begins to tinker with one of his many belongings. Pete will wait for the right time. 

As the day goes on, the human only seems to get more extraordinary - when the air becomes marbled with cold, he puts on another layer of armour, soft and useless as the last. It hangs off his body like the leaves of a weeping willow, but he looks plump, comfy. He reminds Pete of the strange stuffed fabric in the shape of animals they they'd find in the houses of ex-humans. 

The vegetables Pete helped nurture are kept in another room that Pete can't quite see from the tub - Patrick returns with a handful of different coloured plants and places them on the surface at his waist. Pete watches with curiosity as he uses a blade to cut them into small pieces and places them in a pot of water. When the water becomes hot, the plants seem to liquify, and Patrick puts the liquid into his mouth with a piece of metal. 

"It's a spoon," Patrick says when he sees Pete staring. "And that thing I cut them with - that's a knife." 

"Where does it go?" Pete asks from his tub. Patrick said he should stay in it overnight, just to be safe - Pete's not sure whose safety Patrick's referring to. 

"The soup? It's like, fuel, I guess." He shovels more of it into his mouth, and Pete watches how his throat moves, the ball-bearing within bobbing. "It goes to my gut. And then my body, like, makes it into energy." He pats his middle as if this explains it all. "Keeps me fit and healthy." 

"You are one hundred percent efficient?" Pete asks. No wonder his commanders harbour so much animosity towards these creatures - they have achieved their maximum potential. 

"Uh - no," Patrick says, dragging the spoon around the edge of the soup container and making a racket, "I don't use all of it." 

"Oh," Pete says. It seems humans are as inefficient as their soft features would suggest. "How do you dispose of it?" 

Patrick seems to become uncomfortable at that moment, as if he is sitting on something not quite as pliable as he is. "Uh - there's sort of, like, another hole. And it comes out of there." 

Pete can see many holes in Patrick's face alone. He tries to imaging soup leaking from them, then abruptly stops. "That is odd." 

"I guess," Patrick shrugs. "But, y'know, you're the one in the bath of rice." 

This is a linguistic device Pete recognises as humour, and the combination of this realisation and the joke itself causes Pete to let out a burst of laughter. "I am!" he exclaims, patting the rice beside him, "and that is also odd!" 

Patrick starts to laugh a little too, his eyes lighting and his lips parting to show his teeth. The sound reminds Pete of birdsong. He wants to hear it all the time. 

He watches Patrick wash the remnants of food from his tools and plans how exactly he'll ask, what expression to pull, what to do with his hands. Body language is as complicated as spoken language among humans - Pete can only hope he does not offend Patrick. 

"Uh," he starts once Patrick has dried his hands. Patrick turns to look at him. "Are we friends?" he finally blurts. 

Patrick's answer takes a few seconds to surface, and during those few seconds, Pete reevaluates every interaction they've ever had. "I don't know, Pete," he says eventually. "But - we're not enemies." 

This is good enough for Pete. 

*

When Patrick wakes the following morning, there’s still a robot at the end of his bed. Its eyes appear closed - perhaps just for aesthetic purposes - and it hums gently in the tub of rice, perfectly still. Patrick’s not sure how he feels about it yet. It could pulverise him at any given moment - which begs the question, why hasn’t it? 

What keeps Patrick trusting is the simple fact that he surely isn’t worth all this trouble. The bandaging, the farming - Pete’s been his guardian angel for the past few months and with each act of kindness Pete performs, the likelihood of some elaborate ruse slips further away. Which leaves Patrick with the conundrum of something he hasn’t had to worry about for a painfully long time - friendship. 

There is so much he wants to say. He’s got twenty years worth of venting to do - it’s just not the same with beetroot, no matter how hard Patrick’s tried. Despite Pete’s robotic mannerisms, his metallic frame and the whir of his insides, there’s something so distinctly human about his face, his eyes. They light with something other than electricity when he wakes up to see Patrick watching him. 

“It is morning,” Pete shrewdly observes. “May I extract myself from this rice?” 

Laughing reminds Patrick how dead he’s become in the past decade - but he shucks the dust from his diaphragm and embraces the feeling of lightheadedness it brings him. “You may,” he replies, pushing aside the thoughts of grains all over the carpet and instead clinging to the picture in front of him - a deadly killing machine vs. a plastic tub full of rice. When Pete finally scrabbles to his feet, it’s with very little dignity intact. 

"What must be done today, human?" Pete asks as grains of rice skitter over the floor. 

"Uh - breakfast first, I think," Patrick says, swinging his legs from the bed and wincing at the cold air that washes over them. The autumn is drawing to a close, and there's much to be done. He'll need to mulch the fruit trees before the soil gets too cold. 

"Breakfast?" Pete questions, "But you refuelled yesterday?" 

"Yeah," Patrick sighs. Sometimes it feels as if his life is an endless cycle of eating and sleeping. He tries not to dwell on this too often. "I need to refuel a lot." 

"I have a generator in my chest," Pete says, and coming from anyone else, it might sound like a boast. Pete just sounds excited about the concept, pointing at his chest. "It moves perpetually. That is why I need to rest, even though I do not need sleep." 

Patrick pushes aside all the things he could do with a generator like that - a companion is probably more valuable. Besides, who would want to live forever in a world like this? 

"And then, uh," Patrick continues with a cough, "after breakfast, we'll go remove the annuals and, like, the weeds and stuff. That's pretty much a day's work." He's almost talking to himself, as he usually does in the quiet days - it's uncanny to hear a voice hum its agreement. 

"I will help you, human," Pete says. "Tell me what you need me to do." 

Patrick does. By lunchtime, they're mostly done, and for once, Patrick's leg doesn't ache, even as he limps down the steps to the kitchen. He thinks he finally understands why it was beneficial for the few people he knew to remain in their pairs as things got rough - his workload has more than halved with another person at the helm, and a super-soldier, no less. 

He cooks himself an egg for lunch, coupled with some of his homemade bread. It's coarse and dense, but it does the job, especially lathered with the butter he's taken great pride in perfecting. He feels a little guilty that he can't offer Pete anything in return for his labour, yet he still wonders what exactly Pete is doing here at all - perhaps that's his delay, he's finally caved and is telling his commanders where exactly Patrick lives and how to eviscerate him. 

But a few minutes later, Pete comes trotting down the stairs, the clunk of his bad leg echoing around the small room. There are a few objects clasped in his hands, and he spreads them on the counter in front of Patrick. "I brought you these," he says. 

These consists of three leaves, one of which is skeletal, a pebble and a wrapper of some kind. "Uh - thanks," Patrick says. "Why the garbage?" 

"It is sparkly," Pete informs him. "Your eyes are sparkly."

Patrick feels heat touch his cheeks - perhaps Pete isn’t so bad. He’s finding it more and more difficult to believe Pete could hurt a fly. Patrick doesn’t have the heart to ask Pete how many he’s killed. 

“The leaves are - I don’t know. I liked them. They are like the others I gave you.” 

“I remember,” Patrick says, pointing to the shelf in front of him where the dried leaves are propped against the wall like fine china. “I like them too.” 

At this, Pete seems to positively glow. "That one is like your hair," he smiles, pointing at a curled, light brown leaf, "and - and this one matches the pigment of your mouth parts." 

This is perhaps a little too far for Patrick to feel comfortable with, but he brushes it off as he scrapes his egg from the pan and onto his plate. He's aware of Pete's constant presence close beside him - it's beginning to prey on his sense of safety. The crumbled chocolate in Pete's fist springs to mind. 

"May I help you?" Pete asks, hovering over Patrick as he sits down, "Can I assist you in refuelling?" 

Patrick frowns at his plate, twisting his shoulder away from Pete and hunching over his food. "I'm fine, thanks," he says, poking at the egg until the yolk splits and soaks into the bread beneath. 

"May I help you tidy your work area?" Pete asks, and Patrick purses his lips, gripping his fork tight. "Human?" 

"Alright," Patrick says finally, dropping his cutlery to the table with a sharp clatter. "Look. Don't call me human, okay? It's - weird." He shoots a glare towards Pete as he clenches his fists on the table. "And, like, I don't need your help all the time. I appreciate it, but I'm not an invalid. I can do things for myself, and, like, the reason I want you around isn't just so you can help me. I want you to treat me like an equal, y'know? Not as some weird, like, pet, or whatever. I don't mind you asking questions, I get that you're curious, but I'm a proper, like, person, I guess. Treat me like a friend." 

Pete's eyes light at this like Patrick knew they would. "We are friends?" 

"If you quit babying me, then yeah," Patrick says, looking up at the robot and finally shoving the egg into his mouth. "I want a buddy, not a butler." 

"Understood," Pete says, and he sits opposite Patrick, lacing his metallic fingers together. "Uh - you've got fuel on your chin." 

Patrick snorts, nodding as he swipes at the stray yolk. "Yes. Perfect." 

After this, things get easier. Pete puts some distance between them, stops following Patrick around like a dog. It's nice to have a living, talking thing in the house that's not a stray mouse. Patrick realises how much he's missed talking, missed hearing another human (ish) voice. Pete is a good listener, too, fascinated by most everything Patrick says and asking endless questions. He's slowly learning the faults and merits of humankind, their pride in spite of their weakness, their strength in spite of their fragility. 

After a few days of having him around, asking him to leave seems barbaric - Patrick can't go back to his own shadow. He lets Pete sleep in the now empty plastic tub, lines it with spare blankets and particular trinkets Pete's taken a liking to. 

Sleep seems to come easier to Patrick knowing he has someone to wake up for. 

*

Pete can't quite believe his luck. He's done exactly what he dreamed of doing for so long - run away from his comrades and started a new life on a quaint human farm that he could scarcely have imagined a few months ago. 

Patrick continues to both confuse and delight him; he seems to prepare different fuel every day, wear different armour with no particular pattern or strategy.  _ Attached _ is possibly an understatement - Pete's beginning to feel like the people in so many of Patrick's books, a single person flooding their affections and resulting in pages of reverie. Pete doesn't know how to write, but if he could, he'd write about Patrick. 

But Patrick warned him about smothering him with praise, so he keeps his distance, cuts back on the pebbles and leaves he brings to Patrick. The gifts Patrick seems to most appreciate are the conversations. 

He talks Pete through his fuel with patience and kindness, he explains the function of his animals and how to care for them. He explains the difference between elation and satisfaction and excitement - the new information flushes the commander's rules from Pete's mind and he relishes it. 

But what Pete loves more than anything is the guitar. It’s the only thing Patrick doesn’t let Pete touch - he’d thought it was some kind of weapon when Patrick had first picked it up - then he’d begun to make the strings sing like birds and Pete had stared, mesmerised by his dancing fingers. He’s almost certain that is what love feels like. 

As the days turn into weeks, the weather gets colder and the ground harder. Patrick doesn't seem built for any kind of extreme weather, but the cold is worst of all - he has to cover himself with layer upon layer of insulation just to go outside, and the bits of him that remain uncovered turn a startling shade of red which Pete knows can't be healthy. More and more blankets get added to his bed, but one thing, at least, seems to be getting better. 

"Does it hurt?" Pete asks as Patrick pokes at his exposed leg. The skin is healed and no longer leaks, the only evidence of injury being the strange colour and the fact that it looks as if a bite has been taken from the flesh. 

“Sometimes,” Patrick says, tracing his fingers over the gnarled skin. “Aches a bit.” 

Both his legs are covered in a sparse fur that Pete longs to touch. Pete asks what it’s for. 

“I dunno,” Patrick shrugs, running his hands up and down his legs so that the hair stands on end. “It keeps me warm, I guess.” 

At this, Pete snorts. Nothing about Patrick is meant for keeping warm. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Patrick says, rolling his eyes, “not all of us have air conditioning.” 

Pete laughs - he’s learnt that sometimes, when Patrick seems annoyed, he’s actually just joking. It’s a technique that Pete’s still struggling to master, but the few times he’s succeeded, Patrick’s laughter has been utterly worth it. "Regardless, you seem to emit a large amount of hot air." 

It has the desired effect; Patrick chimes with laughter and his face lights in the way that makes Pete's chest feel full. Teasing, that's what Patrick had called it. Pete smiles along with him, noting the way his eyes crease at the corners and his cheeks form soft spheres. "You learn fast," Patrick says, stretching out his legs and wriggling his toes at Pete. Pete flinches away like Patrick surely intended. 

"I don't like them," Pete informs him, shooing his feet away. "They are far too odd." 

"I know," Patrick giggles, "I guess humans are pretty odd." He stares at Pete's smooth boots for a few seconds, then looks up at him with curiosity. "Why are you called Pete?"

"I named myself," Pete says. "I heard a human call it out. Is that not what you do?" 

"No," Patrick replies, "my parents named me." 

"Your creators?" Technically, Pete's own creators also gave him a number, but he has a strange feeling this isn't the same thing. 

"Yeah," Patrick nods, "they brought me up."

"They grew you? Like the crops?" Pete asks, trying to imagine a field of tiny Patricks. The tuft of his hair would be the leaves. 

"Not exactly," Patrick laughs, "my mother grew me inside her. Then, like - pushed me out. Or something. I'm not exactly sure." 

"Like the cows?" They're mammals, like humans. 

"Yeah, I guess. Then I grew even more when I was out. And here I am." 

"Where is your mother now?" 

When Patrick's face falls, Pete knows the answer. 

"I - I am sorry, you do not have to -" 

"No, it's okay," Patrick shrugs. He reaches for the cabinet beside his bed and takes out a slip of paper, staring at it for a few moments before handing it to Pete. It shows five humans, all different sizes, all smiling. One looks extraordinarily like Patrick. "That’s the only photo I have of them. She’s on the far left. I haven't thought about her in awhile. But, yeah, she died when I was nine. So did my dad. They kind of - burned the village down, or whatever." 

Pete will be forever grateful that Patrick said 'they' and not 'you'. He feels an immense sadness well up in his chest as he watches the anguish touch Patrick's eyes. "You don't have to talk about it," Pete says gently. He gives back the photo - looking at it feels strangely intrusive.

But Patrick shakes his head. "I've never told anyone, really," he says. "Me and my sister hid under the bed. We saw it all. They killed my father first, then my older brother. They tried to get my mom to tell them where we were, but she wouldn't. So they killed her, too. When they were gone, we ran." 

"Where did you go?" 

"Uh - like, west of here. I don't know exactly. We found some other survivors, but they wanted to fight, so we left in the end. Then my sister got ill, and I couldn't help her. I tried so  _ fucking _ hard, but I couldn't - I didn't - anyway, she died pretty soon after. So then it was just me. I ended up back here, salvaging what I could. My parents had taught us how to farm, so I planted some seeds. And, like, here I am, I guess." 

Pete watches him try to smile, and it hurts when he fails. "You are very brave," he says quietly. "And I am ashamed to have stood among those who took your family." 

"Just - tell me one thing," Patrick says, picking at a scab on his knee. "How many humans have you killed?"

Pete recoils in horror. "I - none," he says, "I would never, I - I  _ could _ never, that is why they discharged me, why I ended up in the lake." 

Patrick looks up, and the surprise in his eyes is distressing. "You never killed anyone? I thought that was what you were made for?" 

"So did I," Pete admits, "I thought I was broken. But - then I met you, and I realised that they are the ones who are broken." 

The mist over Patrick's eyes clears a little. "You're pretty brave, too," he says, bringing his knees to his chest. He looks incredibly small - Pete would like to pick him up and take him somewhere better. "You - you can hug me, if you like?" 

"Hug?" Pete asks. He's read that word before. His dictionary tells him it’s a form of physical affection. "I would like that." 

Patrick shuffles towards him and Pete does the same until their shoulders touch and their knees bump. Pete is acting purely instinctively when he wraps an arm around Patrick's shoulders, but Patrick doesn't seem to mind, and shifts closer, bringing an arm to rest on Pete's chest. The human is as soft as he was in Pete’s arms when Pete carried him home, but this time, he’s so wonderfully vibrant, shifting like the wind against Pete’s body and his lips curved into a smile. 

It’s a revelation for Pete to be touched so gently - Patrick’s fingers curl around him as if he were scooping a blossom from the ground - and he’s never felt quite so cared for. Pete’s comrades would never dream of such a gesture. Patrick’s hair tickles his face and when he blows at it, he feels Patrick’s giggle through his own chest. Humans have the most wonderful customs. 

They hug until the warmth of Patrick’s palm begins to seep through Pete’s exoskeleton. They don’t talk - it seems unnecessary to Pete. He understands very little about humans, but in those few moments, they seem to make perfect sense. When Patrick’s grip loosens, Pete lets him shift away, but it doesn’t feel like a loss. 

 

That night, the temperature drops. Pete helps Patrick spread two more blankets over Patrick’s bed and watches him cook himself a bowl of something hot that he cradles against his chest as he eats. “I think it’ll snow tonight,” he says around his spoon, “so, like. You don’t have to stay. I get it if you don’t wanna be trapped in here.” 

Pete looks up from the book he is reading - it is about paper, and how to fold it into beautiful things. He clutches it tight as he considers that Patrick might want him gone. 

“But,” Patrick continues, a lifeline for Pete’s happiness, “I mean, I might go crazy if I’m stuck in here by myself all winter.” 

Pete nods sagely. “Tactically it is a much stronger decision. So,  _ tactically _ , I should stay.” 

Patrick smiles. “I’m glad we’re in agreement. Do you want another blanket? It’s gonna be a cold night, even for metal people.” 

“I will be fine, thank you,’ Pete informs Patrick . Patrick himself puts on a second coat of armour, and covers his feet with fluffy gloves. His strange rituals only seem to get stranger. 

He prods a little at his bad leg before he lifts it into bed and underneath his copious insulation, then pulls on the cord that controls the lights. “Goodnight,” he says. 

“Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” Pete finishes. He read it somewhere in a book - it’s just as fun to say out loud. “What are bed bugs?” 

Patrick lets out a groan, and the lump in the blankets shifts. “In the morning,” he says. 

“Okay,” Pete replies, preparing himself to rest. “I will remind you.” 

*

He doesn’t expect morning to come so soon. His body clock tells him the human does not usually awaken at this hour, but there Patrick is, twisting and turning within the sheets. Pete notes that as Patrick warned, the temperature has dropped significantly. 

“Is everything alright?” Pete asks. Patrick’s movement stops. 

“Holy fu- it’s you,” Patrick says, his face peering over the mound of covers. 

“It is me,” Pete confirms. 

“Uh - yeah, I’m good, just cold, is all. Makes my leg play up.” He pushes the covers away and sits up in the bed. “I might just make a hot water bottle.” He stands with a shiver and limps across the room, scrabbling around in the darkness. 

“Would you like me to switch on my air conditioning features?” 

“I thought those were just for you?” Patrick asks. 

“If applied correctly, they can also control the temperature of my environment.” 

“Man,” Patrick says, “that’s awesome. I need you in my bed with me,” he laughs. 

Pete’s metallic heart leaps. He knows what he has to do. He climbs from the tub and scampers towards Patrick’s bed, diving under the blankets and switching his heating systems to full power. He’ll keep Patrick warm if it kills him.

“Oh - okay,” Patrick says from across the room, clutching a bag of hot water in his hands. “Right. So - are we spooning now?” 

“Breakfast isn’t until morning,” Pete reminds the human. “Your bed will be adequate for you in a few moments.” 

Patrick shifts on uneven feet for a few seconds, eyes filled with confusion. It’s not the overjoyed response Pete expected. 

“Have I done something wrong?” 

“No, I just - no,” Patrick says, shuffling back towards the bed. “I guess it is pretty cold.” Pete shifts to make space for him, lifting the blanket so Patrick can stretch out beside him, the water bottle pressed to Patrick’s leg. He seems tense at first, laid on his back with his arms by his sides, until he turns his head towards Pete and reaches out a hand to touch Pete’s heated chest. “Whoa. That  _ is  _ pretty warm.” 

“Are you comfortable?” Pete asks, resting his head on the edge of Patrick’s pillow. “I did not mean to intrude.” 

When Patrick turns away, Pete thinks he’s blown it, but the human simply shifts closer until their bodies run parallel to one another and Pete can feel the warmth from the water bottle. “No, no, this is pretty good,” Patrick whispers. Pete agrees with this sentiment. “Night.” 

“Goodnight,” Pete replies. 

*

Patrick wakes to a robot in his bed, and the shock tips him off the edge of the mattress with a squeak of surprise and a mad scramble for purchase on the bed sheets. Before he can smack his head on the floor, a metallic hand shoots to grab his forearm. 

“You have woken,” the robot informs him. 

For a few long moments, Patrick simply stares at Pete’s hand on his arm, the feeling of falling still spinning in his mind before the bitterly cold air washes over him. He recoils from it, slithering back into bed and pulling the sheets around him. He attempts to glare at the robot, but it’s difficult to hold a grudge against a living radiator. 

“You slept soundly,” Pete says, his now empty hand twitching in the space between them. 

"I - good," Patrick slurs, squinting until Pete comes into focus. "It's not even boiling hot under here." 

"I regulated my heating according to your body temperature," Pete says, and Patrick would find it creepy if he wasn't almost certain Pete doesn't know what creepy means. 

"Thanks," Patrick replies, blinking at Pete's expectant face. He's never quite sure what Pete wants when he looks at Patrick like that, but the answer thus far has usually been attention. "Did you sleep okay?" 

"I do not sleep," Pete says, and had Patrick been more awake, he would've expected it, "but I enjoyed watching you as you rested.”

"Oh - good," Patrick says. "Great." 

"And," Pete starts quickly, "I - wondered if - if you are not busy - we could do another of those hug things?" 

Patrick grins. This is another perk of companionship that Patrick had forgotten - being close to another person is something he'd missed more than he realised. Even Patrick isn't sure how to describe the feeling it evokes. He lets Pete shuffle closer to him, tuck his head under Patrick's chin. His hair is cropped very short, and Patrick doubts it grows, but it's surprisingly soft against his neck, as is Pete's skin. 

Pete's arms wrap around Patrick's middle - he would make Patrick anxious if he weren't so gentle, his touch so featherlike. For the first time in a long time, Patrick feels truly safe. He's sure Pete would lay down his life before he let anyone hurt Patrick - Patrick's a few hugs away from doing the same. 

He runs his fingers over Pete's skin - it's rough, leathery. His chest is plated with rubber and his feet are smooth, toeless. But he has a warm heart, and Patrick doesn't care that it's made of metal. As he leans into Pete's body, he feels the rise and fall of breath he thinks is his own - then thinks again. 

"Do you breathe?" Patrick whispers, splaying his fingers over Pete's chest. 

"Sometimes," Pete says. "The circulation helps cool my hardware." 

Patrick's not sure why it's a reassurance - Pete doesn't pass as human by any stretch of the imagination - but it's something that connects them. He doesn't think as he presses a kiss to the top of Pete's head; it's an instinct, and echo of the family Patrick loved long ago. 

Pete stirs, looking up at Patrick with curious eyes. "I am not familiar with this custom," he says. 

"It's called a kiss," Patrick tells him, "it's another sign of friendship." He's not going to mention what he's read in books about what kisses mean, what they lead to, until Pete's lips are just there and Patrick decides that trying can't hurt. He's always wondered what it felt like, and tilts his head, pushing their lips together. 

It's a strange sensation - Pete's mouth isn't as soft as Patrick's, or as wet, and he stays deathly still as Patrick kisses him. When he pulls away, though, Pete's smiling softly, his eyes full of bemused confusion as he touches a finger to the spot of moisture Patrick left on his bottom lip. 

"That was interesting," he says. Patrick would agree. "What a strange way of showing affection." 

"I think I prefer hugging," Patrick says, and Pete nods, huddling closer to Patrick. 

"Any form of your affection is an honour," Pete mumbles. "Even when it is wet." 

Patrick laughs at that, hiding his smile in Pete's scalp. He's never been entirely sure what love is, but he thinks he's getting close.

*

For the next few weeks, life is easy - or, as easy as it can be after a mass extermination. Pete's company is quiet, gentle, and Patrick grows to appreciate it even more than he thought possible. He would never have imagined a robot could be so in tune with humanity - he reads Patrick's emotions as if they're written in algorithms. He spends his days by Patrick's side, doing jobs that Patrick no longer has to prompt him to do, and his nights in Patrick's bed, whispering his thoughts of existence to Patrick's half-asleep ears. Patrick can hardly imagine how he managed alone for so long. 

The winter drags, but the days don't - the hours pass faster when there's someone to play cards with, someone to plan the allotment with. Pete learns fast, picking up all the games Patrick shows him with irritating speed. He reads a book about origami and suddenly Patrick's home is flooded with tiny, intricate paper animals - pride of place is a ballerina, made especially for Patrick. Patrick likes having someone to care for, someone to care for him. Pete's a little like the mice Patrick used to bring home to his parents and domesticate, except he has less of a compulsion to chew through wires. 

With most of Patrick's life becoming a long smudge of eating, farming and sleeping, it's nice to be surprised again, even if it's just a pair of arms wrapping around him when he's making dinner. But there are some surprises Patrick doesn't enjoy. 

 

It's too late when he sees them. He should have heard them, he should have been alert, wary, but he wasn't. He should have had his wits about him, but he didn't. 

For the first time in months, the sun peeked over the horizon and the skies were somewhat clear - Patrick had jumped at the chance to get the solar panels working once again, to scrape the frost from them and begin the slow thaw into springtime. Pete had helped him, had found a dead beetle in the slush and pestered Patrick until he looked at it. When they'd finished, Pete had touched a finger to Patrick's back and Patrick had turned and Pete had gathered Patrick into his arms like he sometimes does. 

Patrick had mistaken the thudding for his own heartbeat. He's been so buried in the crook of Pete's neck that he'd missed the shift of black among the trees, the hush of something other than the wind. 

They see him before he sees them. By the time he notices the movement, the bullets are already crackling down on them. 

Patrick pulls Pete to the ground with him and crawls behind the ruins, the brickwork exploding into dust above their heads. Patrick fumbles for his belt - his grenade is still there, but they're too far, and there's too many. Before he can wonder about pulling the pin and letting his remains fertilise the ground, Pete's arms are around him, covering Patrick with his body. 

He closes his eyes and tries to come to terms with the fact that he's going to die. It's been on the cards for a while, he's been prepared that any day might be his last, but even now, after twenty years of hiding, he's not ready for it. He can feel the thud of their feet through the ground below. 

The gunfire is deafening. Patrick pushes himself to his elbows to peer out at the enemy, just in time to see them torch his fruit trees. He tries to scramble to his feet, the urge to protect his land surging through him, but Pete pulls him back. They split into two groups - one set on turning Patrick's land to dust, the other set on Patrick himself. 

"We must run," Pete whispers, pulling at Patrick's shoulder, "I can carry you, we may be able to -" 

Patrick is barely listening, his eyes trained on the soldiers. They march towards his home, the trapdoor easily visible due to the lack of snow. "No," he says as they wrench it open. Their flamethrowers take care of the rest. 

"There is nothing we can do, we must leave," Pete says again, but they don’t stop, swarming down into Patrick’s home with their fire. Patrick thinks of the guitar he nearly died for, the bed he built himself. He thinks of the photograph of his family curling into ash. He’ll never see their faces again. 

He screams and cries, struggles in Pete's arms as they're slowly surrounded and everything Patrick's built is burned to the ground. This eventuality is one he's drilled over and over, but his imaginings don't compare in the slightest to the sight of everything he's known crumbling into ash. He feels Pete carrying him away, then feels Pete fall. All Patrick can do is close his eyes and hope it'll all soon be over. 

*

It isn't. Pete tries to hold Patrick as he sobs, tries to comfort him in his pain, but the soldiers close in and clamp their hands around Pete's shoulders, dragging him away. The fact that they're both still alive can mean only one thing - the commander wants to take them, keep them in cages as they interrogate and torture and dissect. Then they'll both be killed. They have maybe twelve hours left. 

The soldiers don't let Pete go to Patrick as they're driven over the ruins of Patrick's land and towards the place Pete hoped he'd never see again. Pete tries to tell them about Patrick's leg, that he can't go any faster, but they simply shove Patrick harder, kicking him when he falls. Patrick's limping by the end, his face crumpled and his eyes downcast. 

Just as Pete feared, they're pushed up the ramp to the wart of a building in the middle of the forest. It's even greyer than Pete remembers, a tombstone, a casket. Their footsteps clang against the metal and the smell of steel burns in Pete's nostrils. The commander looks Pete in the eyes as he's pushed over the threshold, his misshapen mouth curled into a sickly smile. He hears them say they'll test for defects, then destroy the malfunctioning machinery. Pete wishes for the arms of the river once again - they seem far kinder than a scrap heap. 

He tries to reach Patrick, to call out to him, but he's pulled away, shoved into a cell and the door slammed shut behind him. They do the same to Patrick, and although Pete shouts for him, he stays quiet. This isn't how he wanted it to end. 

Pete listens to Patrick cry through the bars of the cell, watches him nurse his leg and rub his eyes. He wants to hug him, perhaps to kiss him, but affection seems a distant memory and Patrick looks an anguished and broken creature now. Pete watches him all the same - he doesn't know which look will be his last. 

He's not sure how much time passes. It feels like hours, but it could be the blink of an eye. Pete looks up only when Patrick stirs, grabs at something on his belt. 

"What's that," Pete whispers. It's round, and fits snugly in Patrick's palm. 

Patrick doesn't look at him, clutching the object to his chest and closing his eyes. Pete squints at it through the half-light. He's seen one somewhere before - worry stirs in his chest. 

"Patrick," Pete says, "what are you going to do with that?" 

"What does it look like," Patrick says. It looks like he's going to injure himself, quite honestly. "I can't let them cut me up." 

"Don't hold it so close to you," Pete says, "it's dangerous." 

When Patrick gives him a look which says Pete's missing something, the pieces seem to fall into place. Patrick's going to take his own life. The thought makes Pete a little dizzy. "You can't," he whispers, "please don't." 

"I have to," he says. "I've lost everything." 

An overwhelming sadness envelops Pete - he wishes he could cry just to relieve some of the excruciating tension in his chest. "Not everything," he says quietly. 

Patrick looks at him sadly. "No. I guess not." 

"I'm so sorry about your home," Pete says. 

"Our home," Patrick corrects, and Pete smiles. Perhaps all is not truly lost. 

Patrick shuffles over to the bars and Pete reaches for him, clasping at the hand he extends. In the other, he holds the grenade. Pete looks at it for a while, then reaches to touch it. "You must not go alone," he says. 

Patrick looks up. "Are you sure?" 

"They will only kill me," Pete shrugs. "I would much rather die with you." 

Patrick leans his cheek against the bars and presses closer to Pete. When he closes his eyes, a few tears leak down his face. He nods stoically, his hand squeezing around the lever and the other taking hold of the pin. Pete's hands cover his fingers, feeling their warmth, their life. Pete rests his head against the bars, and their foreheads brush. 

Footsteps sound along the corridor - a group of them, a squadron assigned to take one or both of them away. Pete thinks he understands it, now, Patrick's want for a slither of control in a world of robotic force. 

"Thanks for keeping me alive," Patrick whispers.

Pete squeezes his fingers tight. "Thank you for showing me how to live." 

Patrick pulls the pin, the lever clamped in his hand. "You ready?" 

Pete isn't, not at all. He allows himself one last look at Patrick before he closes his eyes. "Yes." 

The footsteps get louder, ringing in Pete's ears. Their language seems harsh, ear splitting after Patrick's soft human tongue. They scream at each other, metal on metal. 

"What are they saying," Patrick asks. He hasn't let go, yet. 

"Uh - they're going to run some tests on us, and one of the fuel tanks is playing up," Pete tells him. 

"Where are the fuel tanks?" 

Two soldiers appear in front of their cells. One of them scans its ID against the lock and the door hisses open. Pete begins to panic. "Let go," he says, "let go, now!" 

"Where are the fuel tanks?" Patrick snaps, looking at Pete with wide eyes. "Pete!" 

"Uh - left down the corridor, then there's a door on the right," Pete stumbles, "but I do not see -" 

A second later, Patrick's gone from Pete's arms. He runs at the door and shoves his arm through the bars. Pete sees him throw the grenade, hears his cry of exertion. The few seconds of silence that follow are honey-slow. Then, the world shatters around him. 

The force of the explosion ripples through the walls, and suddenly, all Pete sees is fire dripping through the air and lapping at the ground. For a few seconds, he stares, feeling the heat wash over his skin and all logical thought derailed. 

The corridor outside is bathed in chaos, the ceiling collapsed and the soldiers clawing at their flaming bodies. Pete clutches at the bars, staring first at the carnage, then at Patrick. He cowers near the corner of the cell, his hands thrown over his face but his body unharmed. Pete breathes a sigh of gratitude - they’re both alive, they’re both unscathed - but then, the smoke begins to pour between them. 

“Patrick,” Pete calls, stretching an arm through the bars and grasping at his arm. “Patrick - can you hear me?” 

Patrick lifts his head and nods, his eyes slitting open. He grasps Pete’s hand, then lets it slip away. Pete frowns, a spike of worry rushing through him as he considers that something is not right. 

“Patrick? What is the matter?” he says, pushing himself to his knees and peering through the bars. “Human! What is wrong with you?!” 

Patrick shakes his head. “Go,” is what he mouths. Then he shuts his eyes. 

“No,” Pete protests, shaking Patrick hard. “Are you hurt? Patrick!” 

This time, Patrick doesn’t reply. Instead, he coughs, a hacking, ugly sound - and Pete realises that whatever it is, it’s serious. Patrick is dying. 

With a cry of anguish, Pete beats at the bars, watching with horror as Patrick slumps against the wall, motionless. The metal doesn’t budge, so he rises to his feet and hurls himself at the door until his shoulder sears but the hinges buckle and break. 

The next few minutes are a blur.  The noise is deafening, the building slowly collapsing around them as it burns. Pete shoves at the door to Patrick’s cell with all his might, his head spinning and his body beginning to ache with the strain. When the door finally gives, Pete’s spirit is close behind. He collapses onto the floor and crawls for Patrick, pulling him close and cradling his limp head. Pete stares at his motionless face, his foggy mind trying to think what the human might need, and how to help him. Patrick lets out another weak cough, and then it hits Pete - Patrick can’t breathe. 

But Pete’s a superhuman. He takes a breath, and the filter at the back of his throat removes all the ash and carbon monoxide. The next breath Pete takes is pushed straight into Patrick’s gasping lungs. Patrick chest rises and his lips twitch underneath Pete’s. Pete gives him two more breaths and his eyes flutter open, his hand curling around Pete’s forearm. 

Pete looks at the door - the flames will soon be too large to navigate. He doesn’t think twice before he wraps his arms around Patrick and lifts him as gently as he can. “Hold on,” he whispers into Patrick’s hair. Then, he runs. 

* 

Patrick opens his eyes to a bright white sky. He’d think he was dead were it not for the two big brown eyes that suddenly block the sun - they blink at him, and Patrick blinks back. 

“Are you alive?” Pete asks quietly, his hands on Patrick’s face and the wind running through Patrick’s hair. 

“I am,” Patrick tries to say - his voice is a shredded mess, his throat burning with ash. He takes a gulp of clean forest air and relishes the taste. He can feel earth under his hands and digs his fingers into it, grateful for the cold. As he remembers it all, the loss hits him - his whole life, gone up in flames. Each thought brings a new grief, a new panic, but then Pete’s hands are around his shoulders, hauling him upright and holding him tight. 

“We will be okay,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Patrick’s cheek. “We are free of them, now.” Patrick shuts his eyes and tries to believe him, his hands curling into fists in the dirt. 

But when he opens his eyes, he sees the spring. He sees the flecks of green among dust white branches, the shoots of grass between his fingers and the curls of fern at his feet. He sees the smoking ruin of the enemy crumble to slake the hunger of the earth beneath. Patrick’s bones are threaded with that same hunger. 

Pete helps Patrick to his feet. The prospect of starting all over again is too much to process, but Patrick will take it one step at a time. His first step is to take hold of Pete’s hand and squeeze it tight. They will rebuild. They will remain. It’s human nature. 

Around them, the world stirs back to life - and they will do the same.    
  
  
  



End file.
